A Summer Affair
Page 1
Praise for the novels of
SUSAN WIGGS
ENCHANTED AFTERNOON
“A bold, humorous and poignant romance that fulfills every woman’s dreams.”
—New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd
“Wiggs has a knack for creating engaging characters, and her energetic prose shines through the pages.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A woman’s valiant struggle for life and love, by turns romantic and gritty, always compelling.”
—New York Times bestselling author Josie Litton
HALFWAY TO HEAVEN
“With its lively prose, well-developed conflict and passionate characters, this enjoyable, poignant tale is certain to enchant.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Wiggs’ writing shimmers…. Her flair for crafting intelligent characters and the sheer joy of the verbal sparring between them makes for a delightful story you’ll want to devour at once.”
—BookPage
“Wiggs combines the complications of love and politics in an entertaining American historical.”
—Booklist
THE FIREBRAND
“With this final installment of Wiggs’s Chicago Fire trilogy, she has created a quiet page-turner that will hold readers spellbound….”
—Publishers Weekly
“Wiggs’s synergistic blending of historical authenticity, complex multifaceted characters, and riveting plot makes for an exquisite romance.”
—Booklist
THE MISTRESS
RITA® Award Winner
“This is the action-adventure edition of the romance novel.”
—Detroit Free Press
“Susan Wiggs delves deeply into her characters’ hearts and motivations to touch our own.”
—RT Book Reviews
THE HOSTAGE
“Once more, Ms. Wiggs demonstrates her ability to bring readers a story to savor that has them impatiently awaiting each new novel.”
—RT Book Reviews
THE HORSEMASTER’S DAUGHTER
“In poetic prose, Wiggs evocatively captures the Old South and creates an intense, believable relationship between the lovers.”
—Publishers Weekly
“It’s an inspiring story that will touch your heart.”
—The Oakland Press
THE CHARM SCHOOL
“An irresistible blend of The Ugly Duckling and My Fair Lady. Jump right in and enjoy yourself—I did.”
—New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulter
“The Charm School draws readers in with delightful characters, engaging dialogue, humor, emotion and sizzling sensuality.”
—Costa Mesa Sunday Times
THE DRIFTER
“A smart, unorthodox coupling to which Wiggs adds humor, brains and a certain cultivation that will leave readers anticipating her next romance.”
—Publishers Weekly
“At once beautiful, tender, poignant and full of meaning, The Drifter is a rare, powerful read.”
—RT Book Reviews
THE LIGHTKEEPER
“…captivating sense of place, one that creates an atmospheric energy from start to finish.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A classic beauty-and-the-beast love story that will stay in your heart long after you’ve turned the last page. A poignant, beautiful romance.”
—New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah
Also by SUSAN WIGGS
Contemporary
HOME BEFORE DARK
THE OCEAN BETWEEN US
SUMMER BY THE SEA
TABLE FOR FIVE
LAKESIDE COTTAGE
JUST BREATHE
The Lakeshore Chronicles
SUMMER AT WILLOW LAKE
THE WINTER LODGE
DOCKSIDE
SNOWFALL AT WILLOW LAKE
FIRESIDE
LAKESHORE CHRISTMAS
THE SUMMER HIDEAWAY
Historical
THE LIGHTKEEPER
THE DRIFTER
The Tudor Rose Trilogy
AT THE KING’S COMMAND
THE MAIDEN’S HAND
AT THE QUEEN’S SUMMONS
Chicago Fire Trilogy
THE HOSTAGE
THE MISTRESS
THE FIREBRAND
Calhoun Chronicles
THE CHARM SCHOOL
THE HORSEMASTER’S DAUGHTER
HALFWAY TO HEAVEN
ENCHANTED AFTERNOON
A SUMMER AFFAIR
SUSAN WIGGS
A SUMMER AFFAIR
Dedicated with love to Mary Hyatt—“Mensch”—a reader who became a true friend.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my first readers, whose insights and observations always keep me going: Lois, Kate, Anjali, Rose Marie, Susan, Sheila, P.J., Joyce, Barb and Alice. As always, thanks to Martha Keenan of MIRA Books for her editorial eye. Grateful acknowledgment also belongs to the Daniel E. Koshland San Francisco History Center of the San Francisco Library, which directed me to the primary source material that inspired this story. Other primary source material came from Indiana University’s machine-readable transcriptions of the Victorian Women Writers Project, including the works of Isabella Bird, the “Englishwoman in America.” The Schaeffer Library of Drug Policy and the Library of Congress provided fascinating and factual information through their collections about opium legislation and the history of the opium trade.
Contents
Part One: Mad City
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part Two: Rescue
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Part Three: Travels with Isabel
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Part One
Mad City
“San Francisco is a mad city, inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people whose women are of remarkable beauty.”
—Rudyard Kipling
One
He never even knew her name. Not her age, nor her favorite color, nor what she looked like when she smiled. All he knew for certain was that she had been a prostitute, and she had ingested too much black drop opium.
As though searching for some rationale for the tragedy, he made a final study of her gaunt, bony face, her frizzy hair the color of a brass spittoon. One arm was permanently disfigured from a poorly-healed break; it must have ached for years. Yet in spite of all that, she was oddly beautiful, almost defiantly so in the face of
the grotesque indignities heaped upon her by life, and now by death.
Strange that he would be the last to look upon her.
In a ritual he’d performed far too many times, he tucked her into a bleached canvas shroud. The garment had been hand sewn and donated by the Ladies Aid Guild, whose members gossiped and drank imported tea as they performed good works for the betterment of society.
He pulled the drawstring tight. Then he rolled the creaking wheeled cot out through the back of the building and stepped into the thick, cool air. San Francisco was a different place at the hollow hour between dark and dawn.
Night still haunted the city, darkness clinging in corners and crevices of the waterfront district, lingering under the bows of ships in the harbor and trailing down crooked stairways that led to dank-smelling basements. He checked his pocket watch. The colorless limbo would linger for another hour before first light smeared the foggy sky over the bay.
Travelers often remarked that San Francisco had grown into one of the world’s great places, but he wouldn’t know about that. These days he rarely left the city, anyway.
A rescue wagon, serving double duty as a morgue transport, backed up to the raised bay jutting out into the alley. “Let me give you a hand with that, Dr. Calhoun.” Willie Bean, his orderly, jumped down from the driver’s bench.
Together, with as much reverence as they could manage, they loaded the nameless woman into the wicker morgue casket on the flatbed cart.
Blue Calhoun tucked a stray corner of the shroud down into the casket, lowered the lid, then buckled the fastener to hold it shut. The ancient leather strap, cracked from frequent use, practically crumbled in his hand as he cinched it tight. The lid sprang upward several inches.
He stared at the broken curl of leather. “This is useless,” he said.
“She won’t notice,” Willie pointed out.
“I will.” The idea of the woman being driven through the city streets, her casket lid flapping open at every bump in the road, made him want to growl with frustration. He unbuckled the belt at his waist and yanked it through the trouser loops. Then he passed the supple Italian leather through the lid closure and fastened it securely. Feeling Willie’s stare, Blue became conscious of the jerky, repressed violence of his movements.
He took a deep breath and stepped away from the wagon. Working half the night to save a woman beyond saving had left him exhausted and emptied out. “Ready,” he said, signaling for Willie to go.
“You can’t save them all, Doc.” Willie took the reins. He clicked his tongue and drove off, the wagon disappearing into the weightless veil of fog until only the hollow clop of the horse’s hooves could be heard. By this time tomorrow, the dead woman would be loaded into a contract box and buried among the sagebrush and sand dunes of Lime Kiln Point at a cost of $2.60 to the City and County of San Francisco.
Blue heard a few muffled pops—fireworks, or more likely, gunshot, coming from the waterfront district. He was so hardened to the sound that he felt no alarm.
He rotated his aching shoulders, feeling knots and twinges of tension in every fiber of his body. His meddlesome friends and well-meaning family liked to remind him that he was a vigorous man in his prime, but he didn’t feel that way at all. Each patient tore off a little piece of his heart, yet he carried on. This was his entire life now. He didn’t know what else to do.
Long ago, he’d stopped questioning himself. It didn’t matter why he was compelled to go down to the seamy underbelly of the city, night after night, to find the sickest, most hopeless souls, to gather them in like a blighted harvest, to nurture and heal, or to comfort and then let go. It took a certain measure of arrogance to practice medicine with such doggedness, but it was more than arrogance that drove him. He was like a miner who kept sifting and searching through the detritus of humanity for a glint of redemption. No matter how many people he rescued, dozens or hundreds or more, all his heroics would never make up for the one he’d failed to save.
He had spent the past ten years trying to reclaim that moment.
The distant bong of the clock in Montgomery Square signaled five o’clock. It was as good a time as any to head home, catch a few hours’ sleep, then see his regular patients. The medical wing of the Mission Rescue League would be served during the day by his associates. The league was staffed by nuns and volunteers whose chief qualification was the only one that really mattered—compassion.
He collected his heavy satchel, jammed on a hard felt Homburg hat that had seen better days and climbed into his one-horse phaeton, a sporting vehicle he favored for the speed of getting through the city streets. Few horses had the strength and stamina to climb the undulating hills of San Francisco, and people generally made use of the cable cars whose steel ropes connected the commercial area like thick webs.
Blue rarely used cable cars. His horses came from his family’s own breeding farm. He’d left behind a haunted childhood and grew up there, racing along the seaside cliffs on light-boned, muscular horses that quickly became famous throughout the region. Life had been unimaginably sweet there, at the ranch his parents called Cielito, so sweet it had left him ill-prepared for the harshness of the world.
He’d learned the easy lessons of life but not the hard ones. He used to believe life was made for joy and that love lasted forever. He joined the Union Army, and he actually believed at the outset that he fought for a just cause. Only later did he discover that even justice had its horrors. And the war was not even the worst thing that had happened to him.
He drove through the damp miasma rolling in off the bay. His route took him past filthy-looking hells with signs advertising Steam Beer, Five Cents. He passed the occasional reeling drunk, busy hod carrier, scurrying woman or furtive child fleeing with stolen goods.
In Keeler’s Alley, a pair of Barbary Coast crimps headed toward the waterfront, supporting their human cargo between them—a half-conscious man whom they’d drugged, probably with a Micky Finn.
With no real hope of success, Blue pulled alongside the crimps and slowed the horse. “Looks like your friend’s in a bad way,” he said. He recognized this pair. The younger of the two wore a jaunty hat with a distinctive pheasant feather in the brim. They were Charles Pisco and Abner Punch, two of the most successful and shameless crimps in the area. For the right fee, they were known to do the sorts of things even bad men shunned.
“Aye, that’s a fact,” said Pisco.
The victim made a sound, something between a whistle and a snort. His face was obscured beneath the brim of a battered hat.
Blue knew better than to challenge the crimps. For some years, he had maintained an uneasy territorial truce with men like Pisco and Punch. He didn’t interfere with their business, and they didn’t interfere with his. But tonight, still haunted by the nameless woman’s death, he felt compelled to save the boy.
“I’m in no hurry. I could give him a lift,” he offered.
“That won’t be necessary, sir. We’re nearly there.”
They didn’t say where, but he guessed they were headed for a bar pilot’s Whitehall skiff, to be ferried out to a ship bound for the high seas. The shipmaster would pay the crimps a cut of the seaman’s wages, and the victim would awaken to forced labor for untold months at sea.
“The boy’s too young to raise a beard,” Blue said as his head lolled back, showing a smooth, tender cheek.
“Old enough to run up a tab he can’t pay at the Sailor’s Home.” The famous establishment, run by the Ladies Seaman’s Friends Society, was the biggest and most corrupt crimp agency in town. Pisco offered a patently insincere grin. “Nice try, Dr. Blue, but the fact is, a sailor’s life’ll be a step up for this one. He’s a little too fond of the Shanghai smoke.”
“So you’re in the business of curing addicts now?” Blue asked.
Punch laughed as though Blue had made a joke. Then he tipped his peaked hat. “Good day to ye, sir. We must be going.” The men hurried with their burden out of range of the misty g
lobe of light cast by a street lamp on the corner. Blue watched them for a moment, the lad small and slight between his two burly abductors.
This happened every night, Blue told himself. As Willie said, he couldn’t save them all. It was absurd to even try.
He had no idea why he put his fingers to his lips and let out a sharp whistle, freezing the crimps in their tracks as they turned the corner toward the wharf area. He tapped the horse into a trot and caught up with them.
“How much?” he demanded.
Pisco and Punch exchanged a look. “Well, now, Doc, we’re looking at a strong youngster here, a hard worker. I imagine he’ll fetch at least eighty dollars.”
“That’s twice what you’d get, and you know it.” Blue dug in his pocket and counted out five ten-dollar gold pieces. “It’s a bird in the hand,” he said. “Take it or leave it.”
The transaction was finished in minutes. The boy lay in an unmoving heap on the floor of the open cart. For all Blue knew, he’d purchased a corpse.
As he headed away from the damp and seamy waterfront area, he drove past a block of densely-packed warehouses. Even at this hour of the morning, the narrow street was jammed with drunks and thieves, laughing and fighting, disrupting traffic. Blue’s carriage creaked and sagged, and the horse was skittish for several blocks, until the waterfront lay far behind.
Morning light tracked across the bay. The first ferries of the day glided between Alameda, Oakland and the city. The chill air was softened by a fine haze that would soon yield to hard summer sun.